CLARK HOYT ’64 COLLEGE HONORS FIVE WATCHES OVER DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI THE WATCHDOGS WITH JOHN JAY AWARDS Page 26 Page 18 Columbia College May/June 2010 TODAY Gareth Williams’ Core Principles For more than 16 years, the Violin Family Professor of Classics has been breathing life into ancient languages and texts for thousands of students Alumni Reunion Weekend 9ebkcX_W9ebb[][ Come Celebrate Alumni Reunion Weekend 2010 — the reunion that everyone is looking forward to! In addition to class-specific events throughout the weekend, you can join all Columbians 1945 celebrating their reunions on Friday at the “Back on Campus” sessions, including Core Curriculum mini-courses, engineering lectures, tours of the Morningside campus and its 1950 libraries and more. There even will be unique opportunities to engage deeply with the 1955 city’s arts community with theater, ballet, music and gallery options. 1960 Columbians will be dispersed throughout the Heights and greater Gotham all weekend long, but Saturday is everyone’s day on campus. This year’s Saturday programming 1965 will invite all alumni back to celebrate and learn together from some of Columbia’s best-known faculty in a series of public lectures, at the Decades BBQs and affinity 1970 receptions. The night wraps up with the reunion classes’ tri-college wine tasting on 1975 Low Plaza, followed by our biggest line-up of class dinners ever and a final tri-college gathering for champagne, dancing and good times on Low Plaza. 1980 1985 Dates and Registration Information 1990 Thursday, June 3–Sunday, June 6, 2010 1995 REGISTER TODAY! 2000 For more information or to register online, 2005 please visit http://reunion.college.columbia.edu. 9ebkcX_W9ebb[][ CCT10_8.25x10_April.indd 1 4/4/10 1:42:08 PM Columbia College Today Contents 12 22 18 16 14 26 COVER STORY ALUMNI NEWS DEPARTMENTS 35 B OOKSHEL F 2 LETTERS TO THE 22 GARETH WILLIAMS ’ Featured: Steven L. Cantor ’73 ED ITOR ORE RIN C I P LES discusses green roofs and C P their practical and aesthetic 3 WITHIN THE FAMILY The Violin Family Professor of Classics Gareth purposes in Green Roofs in 4 ROUN D THE UA D S Landscape Design. A Q Williams breathes life into the Core’s ancient texts, 4 Reunion and Dean’s making them lively and relevant to students. 37 O BITUARIES Day 2010 5 By Ethan Rouen ’04J 38 Arnold Beichman ’34 Benjamin Jealous ’94 To Speak at Class Day 41 C LASS NOTES 7 Columbians Win A LUMNI Upd ATES Prestigious Scholarships FEATURES 10 58 Kenny Greenberg ’72 5 Minutes with … Stefan Andriopoulos 68 Steve Heroux ’91 11 Alumni in the News JOHN JAY DINNER HONORS FIVE ALUMNI 75 Nick Cain ’06 18 12 Student Spotlight: The College celebrated five alumni for their distin- 80 A LUMNI CORNER Chan ’12 and guished professional achievements at a black-tie The first Columbia alumnus Hollarsmith ’12 14 dinner in midtown in March. to run a sub–four-minute mile Roar Lion Roar helps a student achieve that 15 Campus News By Lisa Palladino; photos by Eileen Barroso feat, and shares the elation. 16 Edward Koren ’57 By Liam Boylan-Pett ’08 Art Exhibit 26 WAT C HIN G THE WAT C H D O G S AT THE NEW YORK TIMES Web Exclusives at www.college.columbia.edu/cct Times public editor Clark Hoyt ’64 takes on readers’ complaints and responds thoughtfully and with an WILLIAMS ’ CORE PRIN C I P LES Watch excerpts from an interview with Professor Gareth Williams. infusion of facts. By David McKay Wilson KOREN ’S BI G SHO W Edward Koren ’57 and curators David Rosand ’59, ’65 GSAS and Diane Fane ’93 GSAS discuss aspects of the exhibit of Koren’s work, 30 COLUMBIA FORUM on display now at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery. Nobel Laureate and University Professor Joseph E. FOUR MINUTES , ONE MILE Stiglitz argues in his new book, Freefall: America, Free Watch Kyle Merber ’12 become the first person wearing Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, that GDP Columbia blue to run a mile in under four minutes. is not the right way to assess standard of living. FIVE MORE MINUTES See part of CCT’s discussion with Germanic Languages Professor Stefan Andriopoulos. COVER: DAVID WENTWORTH COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY Letters to the Editor Professor Karl Kroeber nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp- Volume 37 Number 5 I and no doubt countless other Columbia analysis-2009.html) points out that we are May/June 2010 College alumni read with sadness the news currently in a deep solar minimum, with a EDITOR AND PUBLISHER of Professor Karl Kroeber’s death in the corresponding decrease in the amount of Alex Sachare ’71 energy Earth gets from the sun, but global MANAGING EDITOR March/April issue [“Around the Quads”]. Lisa Palladino Over the years, when people have asked warming continues. ASSOCIATE EDITOR me, “Who was your favorite professor at While the Earth has experienced warm Ethan Rouen ’04J Columbia?” I have immediately replied, periods, those were before the invention ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ADVERTISING “Karl Kroeber, Romantic poetry.” CCT’s of the modern city. During both the Ro- Taren Cowan man and medieval warm periods, the vast FORUM EDITOR description of him as a “demanding but Rose Kernochan ’82 Barnard compassionate professor who relentlessly majority of the human population could CONTRIBUTING WRITER challenged his students” is apt, but I would walk to where their food was grown. To- Shira Boss-Bicak ’93, ’97J, ’98 SIPA add that he was a gentle, kindly man, eru- day, we consider 500 miles “local” for food EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS dite, regal but not overbearing, and oh-so- production purposes. I wonder just how Grace Laidlaw ’11 healthy the American economy will be if Julie Poole ’11 GS well-versed in and passionate about his Jesse Thiessen ’11 Arts field. He wanted the Romantic poets and the grain belt (and the Texas desert south DESIGN CONSULTANT his students to be the stars of the class of it) moves north. Depending on imports Jean-Claude Suarès rather than himself, but it was sheer magic for both energy and food has not histori- ART DIRECTOR cally been a recipe for economic and politi- Gates Sisters Studio when he read aloud the poetry of Brown- cal stability. WEBMASTER ing and Tennyson, holding our small class Thomas MacLean enthralled. I would think that the greatest Jennifer Broekman ’93 CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS reward of teaching is knowing that one FAIR LAWN , N.J. Eileen Barroso David Wentworth had a relatively brief interaction with one’s Daniella Zalcman ’09 students, but gave them a gift for a lifetime; Despite my great affection for my classmate some 38 years later, this is how I remember Fred DeVries ’49, ’50E, ’51E, I am distressed Published six times a year by the this great professor. by his attempt in a recent letter to CCT to Columbia College Office of debunk the notion of global warming. I Alumni Affairs and Development. Joshua J. Wiener ’75 DEAN OF ALUMNI AFFAIRS JACKSON , MISS . hate to say this, but reading it reminded me AND DEVELOPMENT of one of my favorite cartoons, published Derek A. Wittner ’65 Going Green in Punch many years ago, that shows a liv- For alumni, students, faculty, parents and friends of Columbia College, founded in 1754, In the March/April “Letters to the Edi- ing room with a man kneeling in front of the undergraduate liberal arts college of tor,” Fred DeVries ’49, ’50E, ’51E complains its bookshelves and holding an open book, Columbia University in the City of New York. while a woman (apparently his wife) sitting Address all correspondence to: about the focus on carbon emissions and Columbia College Today global climate change. I’m curious about his nearby and knitting under a floor lamp is Columbia Alumni Center quoted as saying, “Surely you don’t expect 622 W. 113th St., MC 4530 sources. Certainly his claim about the Arc- New York, NY 10025 tic sea ice seems dubious, given the maps mere facts to sway my opinion!” 212-851-7852 With the greatest respect, may I suggest E-mail (editorial): [email protected]; and graphs available from Cryosphere (advertising): [email protected] Today (arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere). that Mr. DeVries consider the facts and ar- www.college.columbia.edu/cct I’m baffled by his claim that there’s a limit guments set forth by James Hansen, head ISSN 0572-7820 on the greenhouse effect. While carbon di- of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect official oxide may become inefficient at retaining Studies and an adjunct professor of physics positions of Columbia College heat if the temperature rises too much (and at Columbia, in his recent book, Storms of or Columbia University. I haven’t done the calculations to show My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Com- © 2010 Columbia College Today All rights reserved. what temperature that might be), other ing Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance molecules with higher vaporization tem- to Save Humanity, reviewed in the Ameri- peratures will absorb heat we’d rather the can Chemical Society’s newsmagazine Earth could shed. Chemical and Engineering News, March 22. Mr. DeVries also claims that the green- Very few educated people, and still fewer house gas concentration was higher than scientifically trained folks, believe global current levels when the Pennsylvania coal warming to be anything other than a truly fields formed, but provides no source for serious threat that must be dealt with in a CCT welcomes letters from readers about serious fashion.